RESCUE ITEMS: We purchase damaged old and vintage Batik Tulis which we have very strong reasons to believe were in danger of mutilation, and we sell them at no profit under our "Rescue Items" section. Prices listed are of cost + expenses.

If you can refer a friend to Blue Ginger, they will receive an automatic 10% discount for their first purchase upon mentioning your name. And you will receive a one off 10% discount for your next purchase, for every first time buyer you successfully referred to Blue Ginger. NOTE: Rescue items and clearance items are excluded.

This is a silver plated Peranakan Chinese (Straits Chinese) belt. I am not sure what the actual metal underneath is but it feels very light compared to the other silver belts I owned. I suspect this was made relatively more recent. The height of the Peranakan culture was the rally 1900s, which coincided with the Art Nouveau and Edwardian period. This feels like a more modest imitation of the real deal, and the listing price here reflects that. It still requires and considerable skill to make and it is a good substitute to wear around with modern clothing and spare the owner any palpitations during the rough and tumble of daily wear.
Length of belt is approximately 70 cm, width 4 cm and buckle 8x9 cm.
This is an old item, so there are signs of wear and repairs.

Peranakan / Straits Chinese silver gilt belt buckle.
Please note the extensive handcraft work on this buckle!
CONDITION: Great!
THIS SALE IS ONLY FOR THE ONE BUCKLE.
THE BELT AND SECOND BUCKLE ARE AVAILABLE SEPARATELY.

This is the equivalent of a Japanese "obi", two wrap around your waist, Javanese style. This is the famous 'Three State' Solo style batik tulis from the famous Tjoa family. The Sogan brown is dark and impossible to replicate today. PLEASE NOTE THE BACKGROUND and remember that this is fully HANDMADE AND HAND DRAWN. The diagonal background filled with detailing is very special in this type of Batik Tulis. CONDITION: some age holes along the middle as pointed by the white stickers. DIMENSION: 2.55 m (100.5 inches) x 50 cm (20 inches). This makes GREAT TABLE RUNNER!

This is a Batik Tulis head cloth. Handmade in the brown Solo style with a traditional pattern called "Gurdo" and a not so traditional birds more typical of Peranakan Chinese batik designs. CONDITION: Great. The cotton cloth is really CRISP. DIMENSION:1.6 m x 1.6 m (41.75 x 41.75 inches). This makes a really good table cloth!

Banyumas style Peranakan / Straits Chinese Batik Tulis. Fully hand drawn, dipped and stripped. The penmanship style suggest a hint of what is commonly known as the Dutch style, with block print like simplicity and stylized patterns filling its floral and animals figures. We also noted the indigo blue dye. The Java Indigo was well known for its quality of indigo blue in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Banyumas style batik tulis are well known to be of exceptional quality when the indigo blue is pervasively and intensively applied all over a piece of "kain panjang", with darker indigo almost definitely more expensive, exceptional and almost always more rare, because Java Indigo dye was very expensive. Some blacks on older Banyumas batik tulis are actually very very intense indigo. It appears that newer pieces simply used black dye. Considering the indigo blue dye, the Dutch style patterns used, and the crisp fell of the cloth, we estimated this to be from around the 1930s, or sometime before the second world war. CONDITION: There are 3 small holes as indicated by white stickers, the one pictured here is the largest, there is also an approximately 4 cm repair of a rip which stitching has come loose on some part. There are also some indigo blue dye spots as pictured. PLEASE NOTE that in many Banyumas style batik tulis, crackling and veins of dye are often found, and these are not commonly considered to be faults. Please take a look at our pics or request for them by emailing us. I have only come across two of this kind of design on Banyumas style batik tulis. The other piece with no indingo dye is in my wardrobe :)

Very modern colouring for such an old piece! The bouquet and flowers are made in what is commonly known as the "Dutch" style, whether this is indeed the case is debatable. But it is distinct in its style. This is a sarung or a sarong. A tubular waist wrapper. CONDITION: excellent. The cloth is really crisp. c 1940s.

This is a Banyumas style Batik Tulis with the very traditional "Parang" design done in the Indo-Dutch style, where the colours are cheerful but subdued. The older Banyumas style Batik Tulis was said to have the style more similar to the traditional Solo and Jogjakarta style, which this 'Parang' is. It also has the marking of a black stamp in the corner of this piece, which is a common practice around the early part of the 1900s, to mark the ownership of its producer, maker and designer. We therefore estimate this to be from around 1920s. CONDITION: The cloth is crisp and it has a waxy texture and look to its surface, which usually indicated that this has been taken care of really well for a really long time, despite the obvious marks of age and wear and tear. There are a few small worn points, and some patches of repairs as pictured. There is also a black mark which looks like ink. Please feel free to ask for additional pictures of signs of age.

Peranakan Chinese Indonesian Batik Tulis Solo style by Tjoa Tjoen Tiang, the second generation of the famous Peranakan Chinese batik maker of the "3 Negeri" (3 States / 3 Cities / 3 Countries) style, who worked around the 1920s-1940s. The "3 Negeri" style is known for their classic brown, blue and red, traditionally each dipped in Solo, Pekalongan and Lasem respectively. Colours of the past, in this case, especially the brown, is unlike any brown you can find today in any Batik Tulis. The PH level of the soil will never be the same, making the water used in colour mixing to differ as well. Not to mention the mixture of things used in the dye itself. The recipe for "sogan" brown is as complicated as any chef's signature dish. And unless this recipe is passed down systematically, it is gone forever, as this one seemed to have been. This piece is signed "TTT". I theorize that Tjoa Tjoen Tiang initially followed the first generation Tjoa Giok Tjiam who signed their products in an oval seal. This then evolved to a square one, and then simply initialed TTT. This initial in itself evolved from TTT to T.T.T to ToToT to TOTOT. If this is correct, this would be an earlier work and could very possibly be of natural dyes (although synthetic ones have been used since the late 1800s). This batik tulis was made in the "pagi-sore", which became popular as a way to economize on cloths during the great depression and the onset of World War II. After this period, the pagi-sore was made as a style, instead of necessity. Combined, these facts point to around the 1930s. CONDITION: MINT. Note: the shine on the photo of the "TTT" initial / signature was because it was taken while the item is inside a plastic cover which protects it.

Another of Tjoa Siang Swie's dancing peacock series. What else can I say. Another example of Straits Chinese textile art. THIS IS A RESCUE PIECE. I will let the picture speak for itself. Signature "Tjoa Siang Swie" and sign "Batik Tulis", which indicate to us that this was probably done between 1960s - 1980s as the Tjoa family was said to have stopped signing their batik tulis and left them with "Batik Tulis" in the 1980s (to indicate that they are not machine printed or hand stamped batik).
CONDITION: The colours have faded a little somewhat, but as you can see, it still has a lot of its original punch! The cloth felt rather thin-ish and very smooth, as you would find in cotton cloths that are used rather often (in contrast to the paper crisp ones from the early 1900s - unfortunately a lot of those have became handbags in the last few years). I can't see visible damages.

"Stik 16" is a term commonly used for the number "16" sewn into the cloth to indicate the last 16th yard of a roll of cloth used to make batik tulis in the early 1900s. This ceased to exist after the war, at least in the Dutch East Indies so this become a popular indicator and almost guarantee of the age of a particular batik tulis when the usual conventions are hard to use to determine their age of productions, which is often the case than not. It has an amazing colour for something that is about 100 years old. It has the classical "Parang" background with long tail birds on abstractly drawn long stemmed flowers with a lot of movements. CONDITION: several repair stitches and a 4 inches (10 cm) rip.

You can immediately tell this is a vintage Solo style Peranakan Chinese Javanese batik. The brown is gentle, and the swirls in the background with those light white pecks of dots is very telling. I think modern batik crafts people are still scratching their heads as to how to reproduce this effect. Part of it might just be the aging process itself. The diagonal and subdued design, along with the sogan brown come across very traditional at first. But upon closer inspection, you can see the small birds, made in the style more commonly found in Peranakan Chinese batik. I found them very whimsical! Although this was sold to me as fully "tulis", I have a feeling that this might be partially hand stamped. Hand stamped batik can be found in Java as early as the 1800s. CONDITION: A few pin holes and one tiny tear. NOTE: only the batik is for sale.

This is a piece of Banyumas style Batik Tulis that is highly saught after for its "Beras Wutah" or "Spilled Rice" background and its intense dark blue dye. Because of the intensive of the dark blue, it is estimated to originate from the pre-WW2 period. The darker the blue, the more expensive the Batik. Newer Banyumas style batik tulis usually has cream background with dark brown and red dye. I was told the bird is a certain kind of species where they sort of "folded" their neck, in case you are wondering why the birds look a little odd! :) REPORTED CONDITION: GOOD.

This is a Banyumas style Peranakan batik tulis with a style that is commonly known as the Indo Dutch style of the early 1900s typified by the simplistic and naive style of drawing birds and flowers, which is reminiscence of Japanese block printing. It is unclear whether this style is actually Dutch influenced, or whether this is a regional manifestation of the Dutch or Western influence in batik drawing, or whether it is in fact a periodical marker of style. But this naive style is highly sought after by those who are loyal fans of this particular style of early 1900s Peranakan Chinese batik tulis from Dutch East Indie's Java.